We have a one-month old!

I’m not sure how but a whole month has gone by since Reagan made her grand entrance! I seriously can’t believe how much she’s already changed and grown. A week and a half ago she weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces, so by now she’s for sure over 9 pounds and she’s out of *most brand* newborn diapers (by the way, SO glad we did the diaper raffle at her baby shower. Thank you to everyone who brought diapers because we haven’t had to restock yet!). Her hair gets fluffier and curlier and crazier after every bath, so I’m sure in no time she’ll have a full head of curly hair just like her mom, dad, and big sister. Her hair also seems to be getting lighter – not sure how I wound up with a blonde baby but she pretty much looks exactly like I did as a baby in every other way, so I guess I’ll let David have the hair color 🙂 he’s also hoping her eyes stay blue like his, so we’ll see about that.

It’s no wonder she’s grown so fast considering how much she just LOVES to eat! We didn’t know how extremely fast she was eating until the doctor told us she should basically be eating 1 ounce in 10 minutes, and she was eating 2-3 ounces in that amount of time. The doctor suggested using preemie nipples, which seem to have helped her slow down the eating time and also take a lot more effort, so a lot of the time she’s nice and tired and ready to sleep once she’s done eating (which makes life easier on me!).

On the topic of feeding, Reagan never did take to breastfeeding despite the tongue and lip tie correction. It got to the point where when I would try to get her to breastfeed, she was having a flat out meltdown. I hoped the preemie nipples might help because the feeding time would be a lot closer to what she would get out of breastfeeding, but they didn’t. I really wish that pumping was easier because I would love to continue to give her at least some breastmilk in addition to formula, but with David being gone it is just near impossible to do when I’m alone with her to take care of plus the two dogs – one of which has cancer! – plus not let our house turn into a complete disaster. If it was possible to get a newborn on a schedule where I could rely on her napping at consistent times of the day, it MIGHT be doable, but it’s not. I also tried holding her while pumping using a hands free pumping bra, and that was an epic fail. So, I’m weaning myself off of pumping. Honestly I feel like I’m kind of giving my body the middle finger by stopping. It’s producing breastmilk pretty darn easily which I know doesn’t happen for a lot of women, and I really did plan on exclusively breastfeeding for at least the first few months – ideally 6 – so this is all a bummer for me. Luckily I have a great old friend that’s given me about 50 ounces of her frozen breastmilk she had saved up, so that will get Reagan through a while longer with the benefits of breastmilk in addition to the formula.

Since David has been gone, Reagan and I have been on a few solo adventures out of the house, and they’re getting easier every time. She has seemed to hate the car seat basically since she was born, but lately she mostly just screams when the car isn’t moving (I started counting how long it takes her to start having a fit at a stop light and it was 10 seconds almost every time lol). We’re hoping that holds true when we go to Fresno after Christmas, otherwise a 6 hour car ride might turn into a 10 hour one! One of the adventures we’ve been on together was to a baby-wearing class. We had a Moby wrap and a Lille Baby Carrier, and we had kind of figured out the Lille but the Moby was a disaster 80 percent of the time we tried getting it on, especially when I was alone. A girlfriend suggested trying a Ring Sling also and let me borrow hers to take to this baby wearing class, and I’m so glad she did! Turns out the ring sling is by far the easiest to get on, and so far Reagan seems to enjoy it. I also learned how wrong we were trying to get the Moby on and I feel a lot more confident doing it myself, however the ring sling is more comfortable than the wrap to wear around the house in my opinion. The Lille we were also doing some things wrong, but not terribly. She does fine in that carrier so I’ll probably continue using it for longer trips out of the house (like to the zoo), and once she gets bigger of course that’s the one she can grow into the most.

I know I said it earlier but I really can’t believe it’s already been a month since Reagan was born! The time has flown by – and here I thought the last week and a half without David here would be the longest of my life! I’ve of course missed David a ton and we can’t wait for him to get back, but I will say this was a crash course in figuring a lot of stuff out about being a mom in general and about Reagan and her likes/dislikes and personality specifically, and for that I’m thankful. He’s going to be gone a lot over the next few months, and then will deploy sometime around May, so better to get all that figured out sooner rather than later! I can’t wait to keep learning Reagan’s personality and bonding with her, and watching her grow! I’m seriously so in love with her!

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from our newborn photo shoot that my best friend (Kelsey / Captured Forever Photography) took – there’s literally a TON more but these are just some of my faves: